York County to take over food pantry operations, but shelter's future uncertain
At their meeting Wednesday night, the commissioners discussed how the county might be able to step in and help as the shelter and food pantry face closure. The food pantry serves about 6,000 people each month, while the shelter has about 65 people staying there.
The shelter laid off 20 of its 70 employees last week and announced that it would close its doors this Friday because it can no longer cover the cost of running its programs. The decision to suspend operations comes as shelter providers across the state push for additional state funding to cover the cost of operating homeless shelters.
Emergency shelters in Maine receive $7 per night per bed in state funding, although a recent study by MaineHousing found the actual cost per bed is $102 per night.
The commissioners determined Wednesday that keeping the shelter open would be beyond the county's capacity, but they agreed to move forward with taking over food pantry operations.
Commissioner Justin Chenette put forth a motion after brief discussions to pull $25,ooo from a county contingency fund to continue operations of the food pantry through the end of the fiscal year and to set aside $100,000 in the coming fiscal year to fully take over operations of the pantry and hire staff. The commission unanimously supported the motion.
'IF WE DONT DO IT, IT WILL CLOSE'
During discussions on Wednesday, County Manager Gregory Zinzer said that the county's ability to help is limited, but he encouraged the commissioners to do all they could.
He said it would not be financially or operationally feasible to take over shelter operations, but that it may be possible to keep the food pantry going, particularly because the county already owns the building that the pantry operates out of and pays its utilities.
He said that operating the food pantry would likely cost about $100,000 per year.
"If we don't do it, it will close," he said.
Commissioner Richard Clark said that while he'd like to see the emergency shelter stay open too, he doesn't think York County government is equipped to take it over
"It is simply beyond us," said Clark. "To ask our employees, our manager, our assistant manager, to take on another project at this point, there just aren't enough hours in the day."
Commissioner Robert Andrews mentioned the idea of creating an exploratory committee to examine how the county may be able to help reopen the shelter down the line, but everyone agreed saving the shelter before Friday wasn't possible.
"It would be a very big lift for the county take on a multimillion dollar commitment to run a program in such a short amount of time," Chenette said in a phone interview after the meeting. "The sudden nature of this announcement makes it difficult to respond to it so quickly."
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